Many hold the view, IMO accurately, that Hussein’s WMDs and programs to develop more of them constitute more than “wishful thinking”. And it is common knowledge that he certainly did have equipment, e.g., specific types of rockets, banned by the UN resolutions. (Not to mention all the stuff that got evacuated out of Iraq just before the war.)
Is it smarter to buckle the seatbelt while the car is still in the driveway, or to wait until a speeding truck is impacting the windshield before thinking about doing something? For example, just yesterday Iran’s leadership voted to continue enriching uranium, shouting, “Death to America!” just before announcing their decision. What is the intelligent response to such an imminent threat? Sitting down with them and having tea with supplication and appeasement, hoping they were only speaking figuratively, seem little more than wishful thinking.
Yes, and I have a plastic bucket of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in my garage. I’m on less than a quarter acre of land, not a farm field or golf course. And during the summer I also keep a 5 gallon jug of gasoline in the same garage. It could be said that I have components for making a fertilizer bomb. I even have a pickup truck capable of carrying it 360 miles on a single tank of gas. I have in my past declared that I hate the president; in fact, I’ve said that of several presidents. I have the capability of launching an attack as far as St. George, Utah. I know there are homeowners on my street with more dangerous weapons in their posession, delivery systems capable of carrying greater payloads for longer distances.
I’m not saying that Saddam Hussein & sons were the equivalent of suburban homeowners, but I believe that the justification for invading Iraq just wasn’t there.